Helmut Marko has suggested that Red Bull are currently the strongest team on the Formula One grid despite echoing George Russell’s claims that McLaren and Ferrari will ask questions of them over the course of the upcoming season. Red Bull enjoyed a relatively strong three-day period of testing in Barcelona earlier this week, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez completing plenty of laps in the team’s all-new RB18 challenger.
Verstappen will be hoping to defend his Drivers’ Championship title from Lewis Hamilton this year as he looks to seal back-to-back triumphs with another stunning campaign.
The Dutchman will continue to be flanked at Red Bull by Sergio Perez, who will be looking to push on from last season by challenging for Grand Prix victories on a regular basis.
However, it seems as though the upcoming battle for Constructors’ Championship glory could be shaping up to emerge as one of the closest in recent years.
The likes of McLaren and Ferrari performed well over the course of pre-season testing in Barcelona and have since been tipped to cause no shortage of problems for Red Bull and Mercedes over the coming months.
Russell suggested on Friday that the Silver Arrows may only be the third-strongest team based on the evidence so far by tipping McLaren and Ferrari to come flying out of the blocks at next month’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
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“Some teams are looking pretty fast, a red team and an orange team in particular look very, very competitive,” said the Mercedes man.
Marko went on to share a similar view by highlighting the potential of McLaren and Ferrari ahead of the second three-day test in Bahrain in less than a fortnight’s time.
“Ferrari seems to be strong and McLaren is there too,” Helmut Marko told Motorsport-Magazin.com when quizzed on his thoughts on this week’s running in Barcelona.
The 78-year-old is still adamant that Red Bull will be a force to be reckoned with, though, adding: “We believe that we are among the frontrunners.”
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It remains to be seen whether the Austrian team will go one better than last year by sealing an impressive Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship double at the end of the upcoming campaign.
They raised plenty of eyebrows when they arrived at the start of Wednesday’s test in Barcelona with the radical sidepod design of their all-new RB18 challenger.
Their concept of a striking undercut with a narrow inlet was vastly different from any other team’s interpretation of the new aerodynamic regulations.
Former F1 designer Gary Anderson recently suggested that Red Bull would be well-placed to deliver the best response to this year’s changes due to the presence of their highly-respected technical officer Adrian Newey.
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“If I were to put money on who would find the best solution to a new set of chassis and aerodynamic regulations, it would be Red Bull,” Anderson told The Race.
“There’s a good reason why it’s often said Adrian Newey can ‘see’ airflow. Even though I don’t agree with that statement, it’s certainly true he has an inspirational vision and commitment to concept.
“Adrian will commit to a concept that initially doesn’t look like it’s giving the returns, but understands optimising it is just around the corner.
“The gut feeling is it has a lot to do with what direction you initially go in, even though proving it on paper can sometimes be a bit more difficult.”
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